This study examined why current university learners of French, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese, and, for comparative purposes, actual university learners of German, believe that others and why they themselves would study German. Responses were compared against current motivation theories, narratives promoted by academic language programs, research…

This questionnaire study analyzed responses of 96 first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students of College German to the second part of a two-part question, namely, (a) what forms of German grammar are particularly difficult, and (b) why so. Response patterns show that word order, adjective endings, the subjunctive, and the gender/number/case…

This study explores the ways first-, second-, and third-year college students ("n" = 352) perceived their likely attainment of 19 morpho-syntactic, phonological, pragmatic, and lexical features of German. Analyses further differentiated perceptions by the learner variables of year of enrollment, gender, achievement, motivation for…